A judge issued a punitive ruling Friday against a former Crenshaw High School football for failing to abide by a court ruling in his lawsuit alleging negligence by USC and the Black Student Assembly at USC led to him being shot and wounded outside a Halloween party near the university campus in 2012.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel Murphy granted a defense motion to issue terminating sanctions in Geno Trayvon Hall’s lawsuit, a tool judges have to punish litigants for ignoring court orders. The judge stopped short of dismissing the case, but said defense attorneys can file a motion for judgment.
“Plaintiff was ordered to produce all documents relating to his social media exchanges with his shooter,” Murphy wrote in his brief ruling. “As set forth in the motion, plaintiff has not produced any documents in response to this order.”
Jenner Tseng, a lawyer for USC and the Black Student Assembly, told the court that he believed a request for dismissal had been filed by the plaintiff’s attorneys, but Murphy said no such document was in the file.
Sean Bral, Hall’s attorney, did not immediately return a call for comment.
Brandon Spencer, was convicted in February 2014 in Los Angeles Superior Court of four counts of attempted murder stemming from an Oct. 31, 2012, shooting in which Hall was one of his victims. Spencer was sentenced two months later to 40 years to life in prison.
Just before being sentenced, Spencer pleaded for leniency. He insisted he was “not just some gang-banger” as he had been portrayed during the trial and asked the judge to “give me a second chance at life.”
Spencer cried at several points during the sentencing hearing and slammed his head against a table in the courtroom as his term was being handed down. The prosecution contended that the shooting stemmed from a longstanding feud between Spencer and Hall.
Hall filed his lawsuit in October 2014, alleging that USC and the Black Student Assembly failed to take steps to either make the conditions at the party safe or to warn the plaintiff that a dangerous condition existed.
According to the defense attorneys’ court papers, Hall and Spencer were rival gang members who “taunted and insulted each other” in the social media in the months leading up to the shooting. In July, Hall was ordered by the court to turn over to the defense his entire social media content history, including those from Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, according to the defense attorneys’ court papers.
Hall previously turned over some of the documents, but did not produce the remainder as required by the court, according to the defense attorneys’ court papers.
